The North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) 2016

Even if you will only ever ride a production rig it is impossible to visit the North American Handmade Bicycle Show and fail to appreciate the creativity and hard work that people are investing in building the bicycles shown here. There are some remarkably talented people who have chosen build bikes, parts, and accessories with their own hands.

Sean Walling of Soulcraft Bikes from Petaluma, California just built this 29/27.5 plus hardtail for his wife. Sean's bikes are unembellished and elegant in their simplicity, emphasis on function.

Cameron Falconer of Falconer Cycles in San Francisco is another builder who cuts the frills and focuses on function: geometry, materials, build quality. This one is a 29" steel dirt touring bike he built for Matt Feeney of Pass and Stow Racks in Oakland, who builds custom steel racks.

Ventana had their own aluminum 27.5 plus bike, which they are offering with custom geometry, hand built in Rancho Cordova, California. (A glimpse of Sherwood Gibson, Ventana founder and brain trust.)

With a Pinion gearbox.

And a belt drive, tensioning system.

And this 27.5 (not plus) modern klunker designed by Don Koski.

Rob English of English Cycles from Eugene, Oregon brought this single-sided 29" belt drive single speed.

Boo Bicycles of Fort Collins, Colorado and Viet Nam was showing a 29 plus rigid bike with a Banksy theme.

The Cal Poly student project bike.

REEB Cycles of Longmont, Colorado just finished a prototype Horst link 29" bike with 135mm rear and 140mm front travel. It has a HTA of 67 deg. and 434mm chainstays.

Foes brought the 2016 Hydro H2. Brent Foes says he has settled on a leverage ratio of 2.3/1 after going as low as 2.0/1 in past years. He also says that he is still working on his negative travel bike, which is getting closer to completion (nine inches of positive travel and three inches of negative). As always, Foes hydroformed aluminum frames and linkage parts are made in Pasadena, California.

Richard Cunningham recently reviewed the Foes Mixer Trail. This is the longer travel Mixer Enduro with a raw finish.

Collin Schaafsma of Matter Cycles from Boulder, Colorado says he spent time working on multi-pivot linkages but decided he liked the ride quality and simplicity of single pivot. He just finished building this 27.5 plus 150mm rear 160mm front bike.

He has given the pivot rigidity by building it around 1 1/8" headset bearings.

He says he elevated the chainstays so he could shorten them to 430mm, and eliminate chain slap.

Devin Bodonoy of Lichen Bikes from Indianola, Washington had his new 27.5" steel bike. It is 29.9 lbs as built, with Pike at 160mm and 150mm of rear travel, 432mm chainstays, and 66 deg. HTA. He has developed his own linkage and machined the parts for it. He just launched a Kickstarter campaign.

Portus Cycles from Germany is making a steel version of the crowd-sourced "Internet Community Bike 2.0".

Achemy says the Arktos is ready to go. If you place an order now they will have it painted and sent out in about a month. The look is production carbon, but the front triangle is made in Denver, Colorado, assembled with an imported rear triangle, and custom painted in Denver.

They also built custom clamps for the MRP Groove so that it can accommodate a 150mm hub, and lowered the travel to 100mm to fit the big wheel.

Rick Hunter had a 24" BMX bike.

Ventana built this long travel ski bike for Don Koski, one of the mountain bike forefathers from Marin.

Detroit Bikes hand makes the frames and most of the parts on this bike in Detroit. Price for the complete bike, $699.

Dmitry Nechaev of Triton Bikes from Russia made his kid a 12" titanium strider.

Jeremy Sycip built this 20" titanium bike for one of his kids.

Tricycles.

It seemed like there were more fat and plus size mountain bikes on display at the show than conventional ones. And there were even some high volume road tires, with WTB releasing it's new 27.5 x 47c tire, and calling it "Road Plus".

Alec White of White Industries from Petaluma, California teamed up with Chris King and some other collaborators to develop the T47 bottom bracket standard, a threaded shell that can handle a 30mm spindled crank. In addition, to eliminating all the problems of press-fit 30mm shells T47 can accommodate wiring for electronics that can't fit in a standard 73mm shell. The idea is to coexist with 73mm threaded and start edging out press-fit.

Doug White built this 20" bike in 1976.

The Chris King 40th anniversary collection was introduced at the show.

Chris McGovern of Nevada City, California makes carbon bikes by hand. He starts with stock carbon tubing, which he miters and fits in a fixture, then wraps the joints with prepreg carbon cloth. Next he vacuum bags the frame and bakes the whole thing in an oven he built out of sheet metal.

Mark Norstad and his crew at Paragon Machine Works in Richmond, California are responsible for making the headtubes, dropouts, cable guides and so on, that many hand builders rely on. Several builders said something to the effect of, "We might be able to survive without Paragon, but it would be hard."

The raw material for many bikes at the show.

Almost every bike here was built in a fixture like this. Sputnik and Anvil are the standards.

Steel bike builders are challenged at the chainstay/bottom bracket junction when making big tire bikes. Cameron Falconer (Falconer Cycles) and Sean Walling (Soulcraft) have developed this bridged yoke that can accomodate a 27.5 plus tire and a 34 tooth chainring.

Rick Hunter (Hunter Cycles) developed this single speed yoke that fits under the bottom bracket and includes a chain-tensioning wing nut.

Triton Bikes of Russia had a hollow titanium yoke that is made by welding two machined halves together.

Moots was showing off some 3D printed titanium dropouts.

Chris McGovern couldn't find a carbon dropout that he liked, so he made one himself.

Inside Line hand makes it's waterproof bags in Berkely, California using US made fabric.

186 Comments

If you're going to spend $10k on a bike, be it a downhill bike, enduro machine, hardtail or cross, you may as well do it properly and spend $10k on a bike from one of these guys instead of some chunk of far eastern carbon. Most high end bikes are nice, but nothing quite matches up to a bike that was made just for you.

I went to the show on Saturday. The quality of the craftsmanship was phenomenal. I like road and mountain, so I was geeking out a ton. I think my next mountain bike will likely be a + size steel hardtail. That being said, if you are in the market for a new ride... check out custom builders. There's some amazing talent out there.

T47 isn't exactly new. Also, it has an admirable goal- kill all of the stupid competing pressfit standards by offering all the advantages with few (if any) of the drawbacks while still being something that's easily installed by simple tools.

My legend friend at the lbs knew I wouldn't want a standard press fit BB30 in the new bike, hope make one that screws together as well as pressing in which makes it turbo stiff and sturdy. Impressed so far but if it starts creaking. Threads will be cut and one of these badgers will go straight in! Threads all the way really!

It's a new BB standard, starting from scratch... that STILL leaves the bearings external to the shell. Damn near every BB shell design, except the increasing bastardizations we've added to BSA(which started with internal bearings) has bearings internal to the shell. because putting the parts where you transfer load, at the end of a lever that's threaded into aluminum, is dumb. at the very least, it means you have to overbuild to sustain a load that would be handled with far less strain, if you widened the shell but a couple cm.

I think ol' mate @groghunter found the grog cause that's the ramblings of a drunk. T47 all the way!! The only reason any of the press fit standards ever became a thing is to make factory assembly of frames quicker. #deathtopressfit

@whilgenb Yea, I noticed later that some narrower BB standards do work with T47 to run the bearing internal to the shell(& without a large difference in shell ID/bearing OD, which is also a positive.)

So I'm more cautiously optimistic than before. I still question fine (in fact, after looking, T47 is slightly finer thread than BSA) threads in an aluminum shell: Threaded BBs(& headsets, for that matter) were designed around the material properties of steel, & after dealing with what happens to an aluminum BSA BB shell if you don't catch a slightly loose external BB cup right away, I've gained a new appreciation for an interface that has less potential to catastrophically destroy itself.

Those press fit BBs that thread into each other have a pretty good advantage that this standard doesn't: you're putting the threads in a disposable part, rather than in the frame. if you destroy threads in a BB30 sized cup, there's no coming back from that, & I haven't heard of anyone squeaking once they went to one of those "thread together" BBs.

Jesus christ. Okay those grips are actually really nice grips. I have a pair myself. I also did have problems with lock ons slipping. And also being really uncomfy. But the padlocs are really nice believe or not.

It's shame there's no write up on Terraplane Bikes (formerly Bicycle Fabrications). Maybe Brian Hapgood didn't have a booth, but he deserves a mention. Gravity oriented steel bikes handmade in the heart of the Nor-Cal foothills. DH, Enduro, 4X/Park....They ride brilliant and I'm obviously a huge fan (I own two). Check em out if you want something different form the rest of the herd.www.pinkbike.com/photo/12437066www.terraplanebikes.com

As the owner of Lichen's prototype #2, I have to say Devin has come up with something amazing. It blew my boyfriend's old Yeti SB-66 clean out of the water in all departments, it climbs so well and loves to smash through rough descents, and the Matchstick is going to be even better! But I'm really excited for his DH bike that's supposed to come out next...

Super stoked to get a Matchstick. Steel full suspension bikes are outta control. Especially when they weigh virtually the same as alu and carbon. It's pretty hard to beat a fully customized geometry too. Mad respect to all the builders out there who experiment, refine, and evolve the sport for the love of the game.

I'm trying to get my head around how that linkage would ride. So as the rear compresses, both links rotate down and forward (relative to their mounting points on the front triangle). That lets the rear axle move upward, but also immediately moves it forward. That's usually not the best recipe for smoothing out small bumps or square-edge hits, but I could be wrong here.

WHY all this custom builders choose to go 27.5"+ ?It seems we can't have a regular size wheeled custom bike anymore. Niche markets keep being pushed to mainstream,and I don't see any great inovations,just the stupid war of wheel sizes year after year. Screw this.

@whilgenb Do you still believe the industry really builds what customers want? Do you remember any of your friends saying 2 years ago "man I wish someone came up with a bike with 650b 3" tires,now that would really be the sh1t!"?

As far as the Matter two-stroke, not quite sure yet. I have a Matter SlayRide, and I have to say, it's probably the best geometry and material out there for an aggressive hard tail. Colin has done a great job refining his bikes for those who ride similar Front Range terrain. Not sure what MTBLegend92 is talking about. Does he own any of the bikes shown above? I don't think so. The frame warranties appear much better than the mainstream mfgs.

Not sure how many cross bike fans here, but one of the companies at NAHBS was Squid Bikes. I just built(and painted) one of their Rattlecan frames: www.pinkbike.com/photo/13206752

The thing seriously rips. Its my first cross bike and as a die-hard mountainbiker, I can officially say I'm sold on the platform. Its so much fun. I've taken it on some less than smooth trails and a couple semi-steep rides and it's unreal how much fun it is to get a little rowdy on 38mm tires and drop bars.

Great Article. LOVE those "adventurer" frames with the welded racks. The Skyler and The Falconer. Now thats how you make good use of 27.5 plus and or 29. Shame no fork sus tho. Even tho makes perfect sense. Not sure how Hydro formed constitutes handmade... Also that wood frame is a work of art.

What I find most refreshing about these shows are the independent points of view on paint, colors, and other finishes. The bigger manufacturers have to think in terms of "blue with black...no wait, red and white stripes with black" but as seen in the very first Hunter photo there are all kinds of other colors in the world to choose from. Even the chrome-finish handlebar gives the bike a distinct look, that the big companies can't afford to do. That said, all the product managers from across the industry are probably there borrowing ideas.

27.5 Plus making a big splash, not a passing fancy! Been on a Fuse for sevreal months and can vouch for its funability, traction, climbing and overall handling, has been my go to much to the chagrin of my other several bikes!

I never understood the appeal of handbuilt bikes, I get it with road bikes tailor fitted to your body for racing but not the manufacturing or quality reasons, if you spend enough theres nothing wrong with the manufacturing of most production bikes and they probably go through stricter durability testing than the average handbuilt.

The part about durability testing is absolutely true. NAHBS is about who can make the flashiest looking bike, not the best performing or most structurally sound, and nobody at the show really knows what rides best because you can't ride any of the bikes like at other bike shows where you can demo stuff from the different manufacturers. Not to say there aren't great bikes there, but most of the builders there have no engineering background, and at best were welders or machinists prior to building frames. Plenty were photographers, worked in marketing, etc. and don't come close to really knowing what they are doing beyond getting a fancy paint job put on their bike, which most of them also don't do themselves. It's bike porn for people who like pretty bikes, not necessarily high performance bikes.

That modern klunker designed by Don Koski is absolutely georgeous, one of the sweetest rides I've ever seen. From the saint anchors, to the wicked Ti bars, the polished frame with relaxed geometry, Brooks saddle, it's just spot-on, perfectamundo, wouldn't change a thing. What an impressive showcase, simultaneously flashy yet workmanlike. Positively oozes style and confidence, a rolling tribute to Don's MTB knowledge and experience. Two thumbs up for keeping it real and avoiding plus size tyres. Thanks for sharing!

What a mullet is for haircuts, Foes is for mountain bikes. It screams "it's still the 80s" and somehow looks all wrong, but hey, I guess you can still pull it off, look cool in a strange kind of way, and have a shitload of fun doing it.Also, I guess it must be nice to know that even if your bike falls down a cliff or if a tank rolls over it, it'll only have a scratch and a small dent on it.

"According to Daimler, the German company that produces the high-end sedan, increasing customization, like fancy carbon-fiber trim or heated cup holders, means that fewer robots are being used on its main production line in Sindelfingen, Germany....conventional industrial robots are still widely used on the Daimler line; it’s just that these machines aren’t so good for custom jobs" (MIT Tech Review, last Feb, 29er)Long live Handmade Bicycles!!!

every single one of those bikes is beautiful. thankyou Indy bike makers for making such lovely, lovely looking bikes. I'm glad that bike manufacturing goes deep enough to involve such independent, grass roots fabricators.

i am talking about the alchemy bike. the front triangle is made is us. the rest in asia. it just does not belong to nahbs. even less to win an award. look at the eriksen in comparison. the alchemy is just a supermarket bike like many. besides the fact the paint screams newbie.

As I said. Makes the rear wheel extend back down, pushing it past the extension...here's the article. Interesting stuff, but not sure how it'd apply in riding when you want to skim over something and your rear wheel's still glued to the ground

It is travel that becomes available once your weight is off of the bike. When you catch air this travel will become available to you, but if your weight is on the bike you will only have the 9" available (or whatever is left when you take out the sag for your body weight).

Think of desert trophy trucks. They have huge amounts of travel, but half of that is "negative" travel. This way they don't ride that high when their weight is acting on the suspension. This allows for a large amount of travel for big hits, but they won't handle like crap due to their high center of gravity.

Thanks PinkBike for saving me $22 bucks admission and gas money to see what actually was at the show! These shows remind me of automobile HotRod shows. Cool looking but in regards to warranty and handling the gnar over time, I would not drop decent money on any of these bikes unless it was burning a hole in my pocket. Just sayin...